Iraq
Practice Relating to Rule 90. Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
Iraq’s Military Penal Code (1940) states that causing suffering to wounded persons is an offence.
Iraq’s Law of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (2005) identifies “[t]orture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments” and “[w]illfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health” as grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Under the Law, “[c]ommitting outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” constitutes a serious violation of the laws and customs of war applicable in international armed conflicts.
The Law further characterizes “cruel treatment and torture” as war crimes in any armed conflict when “committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed
hors de combat by sickness, injury, detention or any other cause”.